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THE IMPACT OF CELEBRITY CREDIBILITY,AND CORPORATE REPUTATION ON THEIR INTENTION TO PURCHASE SMART PHONE “HONOR” BRAND AMONG CHINESE CUSTOMERS

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THE IMPACT OF CELEBRITY CREDIBILITY, AND CORPORATE

REPUTATION ON THEIR INTENTION TO PURCHASE SMART

PHONE “HONOR” BRANDAMONG CHINESE CUSTOMERS

THE IMPACT OF CELEBRITY CREDIBILITY, AND CORPORATE

REPUTATION ON THEIR INTENTION TO PURCHASE SMART

PHONE “HONOR” BRANDAMONG CHINESE CUSTOMERS

Guangyi Ling

This Independent Study Manuscript Presented to

The Graduate School of Bangkok University

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

Master of Arts in Communication Arts

2020

© 2020

Guangyi Ling

All Rights Reserved

Ling,Guangyi. Master of Global Communication, January 2020, Graduate School,

Bangkok University

The Impact of Celebrity Credibility, and Corporate reputation on their Intention to

Purchase smart phone “HONOR” Brand among Chinese Customers(79pp.)

Advisor Independent Study: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Pacharaporn Kesaprakorn

ABSTRACT

Celebrity endorsement is an effective strategy for marketers to communicate

with the consumers, that not only increase product exposure, but also to enhance

consumers’ corporate reputation of the brand and increase sale volume in China. The

study aims to examine the impact of celebrity endorsements on corporate reputation

and Chinese consumers’ intention to buy, with HONOR products. Two hundred

Chinese respondents participated in the questionnaire and data was analyzed using

Multiple Regression analysis at the statistical significance at .05. Chinese customers

age 20-35 years were selected using convenience sampling methods.

The findings revealed that (1) All source characteristics including attractiveness,

expertise, and trustworthiness of advertising recognition are accountable for 51% of

HONOR’ s corporate reputation. When examining the influence of each dimension,

expertise and trustworthiness are significant positive predictors of corporate

reputation but attractiveness is not significant predictor. Trustworthiness has the

greatest positive effect on a customer's perception of reputation, followed by expertise,

but attractiveness has a negative effect on corporate reputation. (2) All source

characteristics including attractiveness, expertise, and trustworthiness of advertising

recognition are accountable for 34.6% of the customer’ purchase intention. In addition,

expertise is not a significant predictor but trustworthiness and attractiveness are

significant positive predictors of customer’s purchase decision. (3) all source

characteristics including emotional appeal, product and service, workplace

environment, social and environmental responsibility, financial performance of

reputation recognition are accountable for 39.5% of the customer’ purchase intention ,

which is considered to be quite high (R2= .395*, p > .05). When examining the power

of each dimension, the findings found that only corporate social responsibility and

financial performance had a positive effect on customers’ purchase intention of

HONOR.

Keywords: Celebrity endorsements, corporate reputation, purchase intentions,

HONOR mobile phone

vi

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to express my appreciation to my advisor Assoc. Prof. Dr.

Pacharaporn Kesaprakorn, as a non-Thai student, with the help of her this research

completed successfully. She provided me suggestions and advises for the completion

of this Independent Study. Thanks to her, my Independent Study can be completed

Successfully.

At the same time, I also want to thank my parents for their support of my studies.

ix

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT..................................................................................................................iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT............................................................................................vi

LIST OF TABLES........................................................................................................x

LIST OF FIGURES......................................................................................................xii

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION................................................................................... 1

1.1Rationale and Problem Statement...................................................................... 1

1.2 Objectives of Study........................................................................................... 6

1.3 Scope of Study...................................................................................................7

1.4 Research Questions........................................................................................... 8

1.5 Significance of Study........................................................................................ 8

1.6 Definition of Terms........................................................................................... 9

CHAPTER II : LITERATURE REVIEW.................................................................... 11

2.1 Synthesis of related past studies......................................................................12

2.2 Concept of Celebrity Endorsement................................................................. 13

2.3 Impact of Celebrity Endorsement in Advertising............................................14

2.4 Concept of Celebrity Credibility..................................................................... 15

2.4.1 Concepts of Celebrity Endorsement Expertise......................................16

2.4.2 Concepts of Celebrity Endorsement Trustworthiness........................... 17

2.4.3 Concepts of Celebrity Endorsement Attractiveness.............................. 17

ix

2.5 Concept of Corporate Reputation....................................................................18

2.5.1 Definition of Corporate Reputation.......................................................18

2.5.2 Dimensions of Corporate Reputation / Reputation Quotient (RQ)....... 19

2.5.3 The relationship of Corporate Reputation and Customers’ Intention of

Purchase..........................................................................................................21

2.6 Concept of Customers’ Intention of Purchase.............................................22

2.7 Theoretical Framework................................................................................... 23

2.8 Research Hypothesis....................................................................................... 24

CHAPTER III : METHODOLOGY.............................................................................25

3.1 Research Design..............................................................................................25

3.2 Population and Sampling Method................................................................... 27

3.3 Research Instrument........................................................................................28

3.4 Research Pretest.............................................................................................. 32

3.5 Data Collection Procedure...............................................................................34

3.6 Demographic Data of the Samples..................................................................34

CHAPTER IV: DATAANALYSIS.............................................................................. 38

4.1 Data Analysis and Interpretation..................................................................... 38

4.2 Summary on Findings of Descriptive Analysis...............................................41

4.3 Hypotheses Findings and Testing....................................................................48

CHAPTER V : DISCUSSION..................................................................................... 58

ix

5.1Summary of the Descriptive Findings and Discussion.................................... 58

5.1.1 Hypotheses Summary and Discussion.................................................. 61

5.2 Conclusion of the Research.............................................................................63

5.3 Limitations of the Study..................................................................................65

5.4 Recommendation for Future Application........................................................66

5.5 Recommendation for Future Research............................................................ 69

BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................................................................................ 70

APPENDIX A...............................................................................................................79

x

LIST OF TABLES

Table2.1:Reputation Quotient.............................................................................20

Table 3.1: Criteria for degree of agreement dimension.........................................27

Table 3.2: The Reliability of instrument................................................................32

Table 3.3: Purchase experience of the samples..................................................... 35

Table 3.4: Gender of the samples.......................................................................... 35

Table 3.5: Age of the samples............................................................................... 35

Table 3.6: Education background of the samples..................................................36

Table 3.7: Occupation of the samples................................................................... 36

Table 3.8: Monthly income of the samples........................................................... 36

Table 4.1: Data Analysis for perceived the attractiveness, trustworthiness

expertise of advertisement endorsed by celebrity and perceived corporate

reputation toward HONOR........................................................................... 40

Table4.2: Analyzing the degree of perceived the attractiveness, trustworthiness

expertise of advertisement endorsed by celebrity and perceived corporate

reputation toward HONOR........................................................................... 40

Table 4.3: Means, standard deviation, and interpretation on the samples’

perceived the attractiveness, trustworthiness expertise of advertisement

endorsed by celebrity.....................................................................................42

xi

Table 4.4: Means, standard deviation, and interpretation on the samples’

perceived corporate reputation toward HONOR...........................................44

Table 4.5: Customers’ intention to purchase HONOR.......................................... 48

Table 4.6: Multiple Regression Analysis of the characteristics of celebrity

endorsed advertisement and customers’ attitude to corporate reputation......50

Table 4.7: Simple Regression Analysis of customers’ attitude to celebrity and

customers’ Intention...................................................................................... 53

Table 4.8: Simple Regression Analysis of customers’ attitude to corporate

reputation and customers’ Intention.............................................................. 56

xii

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Theoretical Framework……………………………………………………23

Figure 2: Celebrity Endorsement Advertisement of Hu Ge…………….……..….…26

1

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1.1Rationale and Problem Statement

During the past decade, people around the world have experienced a rapid change

in relation with technology, especially the use of mobile phones. On the one hand, the

mobile phone market is getting bigger and bigger. PewResearch (2018) showed that

as early as 2016, per capita mobile phone ownership reached 98%, and the proportion

of mobile phones was 68%. Mengmeng, (2018) reported that the Chinese mobile

phone shipments slowed down in 2017 with close to 468 million mobile phones

shipped. HUAWEI secured the leading position in the Chinese mobile phone market

during the final quarter of 2017 and for the full year 2017 it registered 19%

year-on-year growth. This allowed the world’s third largest mobile phone brand to

capture 19% share of the mobile phone market, its highest ever for a full year. For

HUAWEI, the bulk of the growth was driven by its sub-brand HONOR which

contributed to more than 60% of its shipments during the year. Four domestic of

Chinese brands have almost more than 90% of the market share. With such a large

market demand, every passing day is contributing new products in market.

On the other hand, with the current performance and quality of mobile phones

becoming more and more excellent, product gap is getting smaller, the replacement

2

cycle of the mobile phone becomes longer, and the desire to change machines is

getting lower and lower. According to the latest data from the Nielsen (2016), in the

first half of 2016, the overall share of domestic high-end mobile phones (2000 yuan or

more models) has reached 47.59%, an increase of nearly 4.38%, while the overall

share of models below 1000 yuan has further declined, and the phenomenon of

consumer upgrading is obvious.

Therefore, it is difficult that to enter the market to ensure and maintain consumer

attention for marketer. In this highly competitive marketing environment, if any

service or product wants to be quickly known by consumers so that they can recall it,

then it should focus on advertising activities, which are mainly to remember products

or services for customers (Esangbedo, 2011). The question is how to quickly attract

the attention of consumers and occupy a certain position in their hearts will win the

first step?

Celebrity endorsement has become one of the marketing highlight in the domestic

mobile phone market. McCracken (1989, p.310-321) defined celebrity endorsement as

“Anyone who is recognized by the public and through the interpretation of product

advertising, in order to the product is recognized by consumers.” If a company wants

to establish an image for its products or services, choosing the right celebrity

endorsements is the most effective because it can effectively affect the target

customers. Their exposure and communication are impressive and they can convince

the audience through their trust .

3

Advertisers use celebrities to attract more attention and attract viewers to

products or advertisements, because celebrities who talk about any product in an

advertisement will attract more people than ordinary people, which is called celebrity

endorsement. Celebrity carry out brand or product endorsements, on the one hand,

they can expand brand influence. On the other hand, they can carry out more effective

brand communication and draw closer to consumers from the emotional level, thus

achieving brand premium or sales performance improvement. Through the endorser to

establish the communication between consumers and products, so that consumers

quickly understand the characteristics of the product, and ultimately win the market.

The year 2016 is a especial year of mobile phone endorsers. Almost every mobile

phone company is using tool of celebrity endorsement in their advertisements. In

China, over 29 celebrity endorsed the top 10 brand. OPPO celebrity endorser family

has more than 10 celebrities. Absolutely the largest number of endorsers in all mobile

phone brands, and each endorser is the current popular celebrity, including Yang Mi

(Actress), Li Yifeng (Actor), William Chan (Actor,singer), Di Lireba(Actress), Zhang

Zhen (Actor), Yang Yang (Actor), TFBOYS (Singer), Luhan (Actor,singer), etc.,

even the supreme of superstars Jay Chou were also on the list. Song Joong Ki (Korean

actor), Eddie Peng(Actor), NiNi (Actress) endorsed the VIVO. HONOR signed

Brooklyn Beckham (Beckham's eldest son) as the global ambassador, Kris Wu(Singer)

as the endorser for China, Louane Emera as the French endorser, Saina Nehwal as the

endorser for India. JINLI signed the contract with Feng Xiaogang (Director) and

4

Shawn Yue (Actor). Huawei signed Lionel Messi, Henry Cavill , Scarlett Johansson.

Nubia signed C Ronaldo. Even Xiaomi that has always been a maverick in marketing,

also found Wu Xiubo(Actor), Liu Shishi(Actress) and Liu Haoran(Actor) as mobile

phone endorsers. At present, almost all mainstream mobile phone manufacturers

already have their own brand endorsers (Shuai, 2017).

In 2017, mobile phone manufacturers reduced the number of endorsers. For

HONOR , because Kris Wu had a scandal, they replaced the endorser with Hu Ge. For

mobile phone manufacturers, endorsers can bring about the following effects: increase

product exposure, increase sales, and increase brand awareness.

Mobile phone industry big data 2017 report that if OPPO news content related to

William Chen, the new can obtain nearly 100,000 reading exposure per day. Wang

Junkai, another spokesman of OPPO, contributed the most to the retention rate of

OPPO . Fans are most likely to buy the brand again.

Moreover, the choice of endorser is a long-term marketing point for

manufacturers. In addition to stimulating sales commissions and sales volume, the

endorser's own public image and product image can be used to communicate product

positioning, so that potential customer groups can perceive product tonality, even if

the current user will not change, but also in advance layout and establish the user's

brand awareness and impression. HuGe, who has no black spots in his career,

Counterpoint (2018) showed that HuGe got the highest score of the organization in

these three aspects and became the most valuable mobile phone endorser in 2017.

5

Meanwhile, according to a survey report of HONOR 9, the content of the survey

focused on the various selling points of HONOR9 , in which “HuGe” endorsed with

more than 30,000 votes, 54% absolute advantage to kill product functionality and

brand influence. Become the biggest selling point of HONOR9.

The reputation is as important as the endorser of the mobile phone brand. The

HONOR brand is also undergoing repeated brand upgrades to make its brand closer to

consumers. As a brand that has only been established for 6 years, there has never been

any negative news about the mobile phone quality or brand image. At the end of 2018,

HONOR carried out brand upgrade. Five years ago, the young user group facing

HONOR was mainly post- 85s and 90s. Now, Z generation (post- 95) is standing on

the social stage center. This generation is the first generation of real in the sense of the

Internet aborigines, they used the first mobile phone maybe a mobile phone, they

want to have a more interesting online life. First of all, HONOR has created a

platform for the establishment of the “HONOR Youth” community, aiming at taking

the content as the core to undertake the brand culture and creating a diverse and open

communication environment for young people around the world. This platform will

also become a higher-level way of communication between HONOR and young

people. Through this communication platform, it will provide support for HONOR

reputation.

6

In addition, the evolution of the new generation of young people’s unique concept

of life. HONOR brand upgrade is to continue to lead young people in the field of

environmental protection, public welfare to guide the young people to

contribute to the society. It is reported that the first flagship store that HONOR is

preparing to build, and some floors and shelves are constructed from crop straw and

bamboo waste to promoting environmental awareness. Moreover, HONOR mobile

phone also has its own global mobile phone recycling system. At present, the

recycling center construction has covered 48 countries and regions in the world, with

a total amount of more than 1,000. HONOR’s emphasis on product innovation and

user experience has accumulated great popularity and reputation. As of October 2018,

HONOR mobile phone online equipment over 100 million in China, HONOR club

APP registered users exceeded 97 million.

For HONOR, the influence of endorsers and brand reputation as a more important

influence on consumers is the significance of this article.

1.2 Objectives of Study

The main aim of the study is to explore the consumer's purchase intention

through the celebrity endorsement. This study aims to achieve the following specific

objectives:

1) To examine the influence of exposure to celebrity endorsement of Honor on

7

Chinese customers’ perceived credibility toward the celebrity.

2) To examine the influence of Chinese customers’ perceived credibility toward

celebrity on their corporate credibility of Honor brand.

3) To predict whether credibility toward celebrity and corporate credibility are

significant predictors of Chinese customers’ intention to purchase HONOR brand.

1.3 Scope of Study

This study will focus on the impact of brand endorsers on consumer’ intention to

purchase smartphone. Through the study of HONOR endorser's credibility, this study

explores whether the credibility and exposure of endorsers affect corporate credibility.

In addition, this study analyzes whether the endorser and corporate credibility is an

important factor in the purchase decision of smartphones. Because HONOR mobile

phone as an Internet mobile phone, its earliest goal was to compete with Xiaomi and

Meizu. Therefore, the consumer positioning is younger than Huawei mobile phones.

The design of the HONOR mobile phone emphasizes the young fashion design concept,

and HAWEI provides the excellent technical support in the hardware. Nevertheless,the

price of HONOR is not too high, so the HONOR formed a image of higher

cost-effective, also in accordance with the needs and purchasing capacity of young

people.

For HONOR mobile phone users, according to the Aurora Big Data Report

8

(2018), the user statistics of the past models of mobile phones in the past are more

than 75% of the population between the ages of 18 and 35.

Therefore, the study will use a quantitative survey method to investigate 200

Chinese aged between 18 and 35 to fill out the questionnaire as a method of collecting

statistical data for specific information, aiming to reveal the relationship attractiveness,

expertise, trustworthiness, celebrity exposure, corporate credibility and customer’

purchase intention.

1.4 Research Questions

Research Questions#1: What is the relationship between the credibility of

Chinese endorsers and the influence of corporate reputation?

Research Questions#2: How do the credibility of Chinese celebrities influence

their decision to buy a mobile phone?

Research Questions#3: How do the corporate reputation of Chinese celebrities

influence their decision to buy a mobile phone?

1.5 Significance of Study

This study aims to investigate the impact of HuGe on brand awareness in the

HONOR mobile phone endorsements. Using celebrity's reliability model to analyze

What kind of source credibility combination has the greatest influence on consumers '

9

purchase intention? Several past studies have found that advertising appeal, celebrity

endorsement, and advertising repetition have a positive and significant impact on

purchase intention(Priatna, 2018). Celebrity endorsement had a significant impact on

brand image. This indicates that celebrity endorser plays an important role in building

the brand image (Harvey and Morris, 2017).

Meanwhile, It will help marketers how to choice a celebrity through the model.

Because marketers can understand how HONOR through HuGe on the one hand to

expand brand influence, enhance the brand grade. On the other hand, more effective

brand communication can be carried out, from the emotional level to bring customers

closer to the distance, so as to achieve brand premium or sales performance

improvement.

In addition, the study provides empirical evidences to demonstrate success of

HONOR brand in China by using celebrity endorsement.

1.6 Definition of Terms

(1) Celebrity refers to the person who is known to public is known as celebrity for

example sports personalities, actors, entertainers and etc.(Hershey,1979)

(2) Celebrity endorser is defined as any individual who enjoys public recognition

and who uses this recognition on behalf of a consumer good by appearing with it in an

advertisement.( McCracken, 1989)

10

(3) Credibility is defined as beliefs, opinions, attitudes and/or behaviour through a

process called intemalisation, which occurs when receivers accept a source influence in

terms of their personal attitude and value structures (Erdogan, 1999). The key

components include expertise, trustworthiness and attractiveness. This survey research

will examine the three components as follows:

(3.1)Trustworthiness is defined as perceived trustworthiness is the attribute of

dignity, believability and honesty possessed by the endorser and observed by

consumers (Friedman et al., 1976).

(3.2) Expertise is defined as the degree of perceived understanding, skills, and

knowledge that the endorser has (Hovland et al., 1953)

(3.3) Attractiveness is defined as an affect-based stimulus attribute refers to

the presenter’ s physical attractiveness as perceived by the receiver. (McGuire,

1985).

(4) Corporate reputation is defined as the extent to which consumers believe that a

firm can design and deliver products and services that satisfy customer needs and

wants. (Keller,1998,p.426)

(5) Intention to purchase:Purchase intention or referring to willingness to buy is

widely defined as the likelihood of a consumer to purchase a product or service (Dodd

& Supa, 2011).

11

CHAPTER II

LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter aims to synthesize the past studies on communication strategy of

celebrity endorsement, reputation of HONOR Co., Ltd., presents concept of

credibility’s factors such as attractiveness, expertise, trustworthiness, and discusses

how credibility’s factors and corporate reputation influenced customers’ attitude and

purchase intention. The theoretical framework and related hypothesis will be

presented. The chapter summarizes the topics as follows:

2.1 Synthesis of related past studies

2.2 Concept of Celebrity Endorsement

2.3 Impact of Celebrity Endorsement in Advertising

2.4 Concept of Celebrity Credibility

2.5 Concept of Corporate Credibility

2.6 Concept of Customers’ Intention of Purchase

2.7 Theoretical Framework

2.8 Research Hypothesis

12

2.1 Synthesis of related past studies

Research on celebrity endorsers and brands has always been a topic that scholars

are frequently to study. on the one hand, fan-economy can make product sales better,

the celebrity’ s exposure is the exposure of the product (Chevalier and Mayzlin, 2006).

On the other hand, Successful products can bring the celebrity beautiful resume and

reward, so that more manufacturers can find their value.

Because celebrity endorsements can affect the impression of brand symbols in

consumers’ image, the corporate that frequently communicate with users have a

stronger influence. For celebrities with positive information, the positive impact of

matching the brand is stronger for brands that are considered less relevant than brand

users (Mukherjee, 2012). Researchers tested the direct impact of corporate reputation

on the spread of positive word-of-mouth to consumers and customer identity through

empirical research in the mobile phone industry. Celebrities are often seen as opinion

leaders (Wang , 2012).

In the mobile phone endorsement field, Kantar (2018) reported that

advertising impact is the fifth factor on consumer purchasing, and top four factors in

front of it are: price, friend’ s recommendation, previous mobile phone user

experience and experience that try the new phone. The advertisement can directly

promote the content for a company, which plays an important role in marketing. Thus,

endorsement have a positive effect on mobile phone purchase decisions, the same is

13

true for university students.(Khan & Rohi,2013). Celebrity endorsements are a good

choice because they can spread product characteristics, but for mobile phones, cell

phone quality is the primary factor in purchasing (Maulani & Pratama, 2019).

Advertising appeal, celebrity endorsement, and advertising repetition have a positive

and significant impact on purchase intention OPPO (Priatna,2018).

2.2 Concept of Celebrity Endorsement

Celebrities are “People who influence others’ opinions, attitudes, beliefs,

motivations, and behaviors”. They often hired by advertisers to lend their personality

to a product or brand (Kaikati, 1987). Celebrities are hired because they are perceived

to be higher credibility of products compared to non-celebrities. Celebrities have a

major impact on people’s opinions, using of celebrities as part of marketing

communications strategy is a fairly common approach for corporate in creating brand

awareness (Premeaux,2005), a positive brand image, a positive brand attitudes or

increased intention of purchase (Caller & Homer, 1985).

In China, also a strong positive effect is created by celebrity endorsement

practices on communication with audiences (Gan, 2006). Advertisements featuring a

celebrity deliver a higher degree of appeal, attention, recall rate and possibly purchase,

compared to the ads without celebrities (Dean & Biswas, 2001).

14

2.3 Impact of Celebrity Endorsement in Advertising

On the one hand, compared with advertising, celebrity advertising offers a higher

degree of attractiveness, attention, repurchase rate and possible purchases without

celebrities, which has a substantial positive impact on the company’s financial returns

(Gordon & Kenneth, 2000; Erdogan, Baker & Tagg, 2001). According to previous

studies, Hovland and Weiss (1951) argue that when celebrities have a high degree of

credibility, consumers have a positive attitude towards advertising, products and

brands. Speck, Schumann and Thompson (1988) argued that consumers have clearer

memory of product information endorsed by expert celebrities than products endorsed

by non-expert celebrities. expert celebrities produced higher recall of product

information than non-expert celebrities. Maclnnis, Rao, & Weiss(2002)believed that

as the exposure of the advertisement increases, the sales of the product will also

increase, and in this case, most of the advertising content has celebrities involved.

Research by Low and Lin (2012) showed that respondents’ research shows that

celebrity endorsers help them easily identify and differentiate brands in the market, so

that better product knowledge is more confident in their purchasing decisions. In

addition, appropriate use of celebrities in advertising can increase brand awareness

(Chan, Leung Ng & Luk, 2013). Celebrity endorsements are important to the

company’s ability to attract consumers because viewers are influenced by the

willingness of celebrities to buy (Ahmed, Farooq & Iqbal, 2014).

15

On the other hand, when the company develops its own characteristics, it is

more likely to resonate with the endorsers who are consistent with the target audience

(Tom, et al. 1992). According to the model of meaning transfer, the model has three

stages to transfer the celebrity image to product. In the first stage, because a certain

cultural environment gave celebrities a certain symbolic meaning, a certain image

symbol was established. It is an image that symbolizes a specific gender, age, social

status, personality, or lifestyle. In the second stage, when the name is applied to the

product, the product has a certain symbolic meaning. In the third stage, the consumer

obtains these symbolic meanings through the use or consumption of this product. He

believes that the source credibility of celebrity advertising is different from the

general advertising spokesperson. The spokesperson has a positive impact on

consumer purchase intentions (McCracken,1986).

Mowen, Brow and Schulman(1980)pointed out that in advertising, product

interests are related to product interests, in order to establish or re-establish consumer

attitudes toward products, and integrate balance and attribution theory to explain

consumers. Therefore, using a celebrity endorser to obtain a product/brand may bring

substantial benefits to the company.

2.4 Concept of Celebrity Credibility

There are many studies that explored all aspects of source credibility. Applbaum

and Anatol (1972) have pointed out the credibility and expertness as a core element of

16

source credibility. DeSarbo and Harshman (1985) further emphasized the four aspects

of source credibility, which are expertness, attractiveness, trustworthiness and

likability. Ohanian (1990) on the basis of summarizing the literature, factor analysis is

used to study the structure of celebrity credibility, and the source credibility

measurement index with reliability and validity has been developed, which has

become an important empirical literature in this field. She believes that celebrity

credibility includes three dimensions: expertise, trustworthiness and attractiveness.

Expertise refers to how much knowledge it has about the goods involved in the

advertisement, and trustworthiness refers to whether it is a measure of credit or his

opinion is objectively attractive.

2.4.1 Concepts of Celebrity Endorsement Expertise

The term expertise is defined as “the extent to which communicator are

considered to be persuasive in the field and at the same time authoritative sources of

information in the field ” (Hovland, Irving & Harold, 1953).Belch and Belch (1994)

said that the audience was very confident that the communicators had the relevant

knowledge and expertise to be an advocacy figure in their field.

Compared with celebrity with low expertise, celebrity with high knowledge and

skills have strong recommendation skills (Ohanian, 1990). Celebrity expertise is one

of the reasons for understanding its impact on recipients of information (Amos et al.,

2008). Ilicic and Webster (2015) argued that in order to give consumers a positive

17

impression of the product, the endorser is considered an expert in the products

advocated, and tend to respond to authentic, attractive, successful, and expert

celebrities.

2.4.2 Concepts of Celebrity Endorsement Trustworthiness

According to Ohanian (1991), trustworthiness is attributed to the extent to which

consumers believe that advertising endorsers are honest, integrity, and so on. In their

communication activities or advertisements, the opinions they convey can be

effectively communicated to consumers, and consumers are also trust it, which

indicates that the spokesperson has trustworthiness.

Goldsmith (2000) argued that the trustworthiness of celebrity endorsers has a

direct impact on advertising attitudes. The higher the trustworthiness of endorsers, the

better the attitude of consumers to their endorsement products, and the high

trustworthiness of celebrity. It also has an indirect positive impact on the purchase

intention and brand attitude of its endorsement products.

2.4.3 Concepts of Celebrity Endorsement Attractiveness

According to Ohanian (1991), it is believed that attractiveness of the celebrity is

how the consumer is attracted by the celebrity’s characteristics, such as, behavior

appearance, personality, etc. The personal attractiveness of celebrities is the third

component of celebrity credibility. Keller (1998) interprets the “attractiveness” of the

18

endorser as a favorite level and uses “popular, attractive, beautiful, lively” to describe

the attraction. Suki (2014) extended on attractiveness should include the viewer's

stereotype or first judgment, especially is“weight, height, and facial beauty.”

About the impact of attractiveness. Petroshius, Crocker (1989) found that an attractive

celebrity advertising source, the audience will have a positive attitude towards the

brand and higher purchase intentions. PatzerPatzer (1983) also found that an

advertising source was more attractive, accordingly, their expertise and

trustworthiness were higher. This leads to an increase in audience trust and likeness,

which ultimately leads to a positive brand attitude and a higher purchase intention.

Eisend and Langner (2010) argued that the effect of appeal is more relative to

physical products than to information products.

2.5 Concept of Corporate Reputation

2.5.1 Definition of Corporate Reputation

Corporate reputation is defined as the factors that affect consumers’ evaluation of

the company’s reliability and consumer experience; it covers consumers’ basic

awareness and trust of the company, and the corporate’ s reputation can reflect

consumers’ expectations from the company’ s services or products The difference

between the benefits obtained and the actual results (Goldsmith & Lafferty, 2000),

Therefore, consumers can rely on the public's evaluation of the company's reputation

19

to evaluate the company's products or services.

In addition, when the evaluation is compromised, this affects the attitude of the

public to its endorsement brand. According to Keller (1991), corporate reputation is

the extent to which consumers believe that a company can provide products and

services when they catch the information about corporate. According to the

researchers, considering the impact on advertising, corporate reputation also

represents an important impression in the shopping environment.

Therefore, in the marketing literature, corporate reputation has always been

considered a key factor in successful marketing. A good reputation can bring many

strategic benefits, such as reducing company costs (Deephouse, 2000), increasing

profitability ( Roberts & Dowling, 2002 ), enable Firms to charge premium prices,

attracting customers (Fombrun, 1996 ).

2.5.2 Dimensions of Corporate Reputation / Reputation Quotient (RQ)

Fombrum is the earliest scholar to define corporate reputation as an attitude,

which he considers an emotional appeal. At the same time, it was also the first scholar

to put forward the Reputation Quotient scale, which divided the measurement of

reputation into six factors:

20

Table2.1:Reputation Quotient

Dimension Content

Emotional appeal -Feel good about the company

-Appreciate and respect the company

-Trust the company

Product and service -The company believes in its products and

services

-The company provides quality products

and services

-Develop innovative products and services

-Provide value for money products and

services

Social and environmental

responsibility

-Support good cause

-Responsible for the environment

-Treat people

Workplace environment -Properly managed

-Seems to be a good company to work for

-Seems to have good staff

Financial performance -Profit history

-Low risk investment

-Strong prospects for future growth

-Often outperforms competitors

Vision and Leadership -Excellent leadership skills

-Have a clear vision for the future

-Recognize and capitalize on market

21

opportunities

Source:Fombrun, C.J., Gardberg, N.A., & Sever, J.M.2000. The reputation quotient: A

multi-stakeholder measure of corporate reputation. Journal of Brand

Management, 7(4),241-255.

2.5.3 The relationship of Corporate Reputation and Customers’ Intention of

Purchase

A good corporate reputation helps promote consumer intentions to buy products

and services. Brown (1998) research showed that if consumers cannot obtain the

necessary information about the product to be purchased before making a purchase

decision, they will not be able to fully evaluate the product, so consumers will judge

the product based on their impression of the company Information, and corporate

reputation is one of the influencing factors. In addition, Expertise and trustworthiness

are key factors shaping consumer perceptions. Kim and Choi (2012) because

consumers cannot directly understand the product or check the product quality when

shopping online, their perception of corporate reputation will affect their assessment

of the quality of the product itself, thus affecting purchase experience. In modern

society, corporate reputation has become a symbol of a company’s main

characteristics and a source of competitive advantage.

From the perspective of consumers, if the corporate has a good reputation, the

consumer’s purchase intention will increase, and company with bad reputation of the

22

corporate will convey negative signals in behavior. Nguyen & Leblance (2001) argued

that when consumers find that corporate have a good reputation, their loyalty will

increase, and that corporate often use ways to increase customer loyalty to raise prices

and repurchase rates. Walsh & Beatty (2007) corporate reputation has a significant

positive impact on consumer trust through research and analysis, and further pointed

out that factors such as customer demand orientation and good employers have the

most significant impact on consumer trust. Keh & Xie (2009) argued that corporate

reputation can influence customer attitudes and buying behavior, and measuring

customer behavior reveals the effectiveness of corporate reputation in attracting good

behavior.

2.6 Concept of Customers’ Intention of Purchase

Purchasing intention is defined as the possibility that consumers plan to purchase

or intend to purchase a certain product or service in the future (Wu,Yeh, & Hsiao,

2011), the cognitive process has played a role behind several factors that consumers

have real concerns about the product or source. In the study of purchasing intentions,

the main focus of the research is the attitude towards the source or the celebrity

endorsement.

Mulle (2002) argued that consumers’ purchase intention is generally influenced

by their attitudes towards products and brands and their external conditions, so they

are seen as the subjective willingness of consumers to purchase a product and as an

23

important criterion for predicting their purchase behavior. The attributes of celebrities

form an attitude towards purchase. Amos, Holmes and Struton (2008) consumers’

positive attitude towards the source celebrities support the brand to increase purchase

intentions. Yoon et al. (1998) also found a significant result of the celebrity's

willingness to purchase, which has a greater influence on the willingness to purchase

based on his attractiveness.

2.7 Theoretical Framework

Figure1: Theoretical Framework

Celebrity Credibility

Expertise

Trustworthiness

Attractiveness

Corporate reputation

Emotional appeal

Product and service

Workplace environment

Financial performance

Social and environmental

Consumers’ intention for

purchase HONOR

H1

H2

H3

24

2.8 Research Hypothesis

The variables of this study include attractiveness of advertisement endorsed by

celebrity, expertise of advertisement endorsed by celebrity, trustworthiness of

advertisement endorsed by celebrity, attractiveness of advertisement endorsed by

celebrity and corporate reputation of advertisement endorsed by celebrity, based on

these factors, the research hypothesis follows as:

H1: Chinese customers’ perceived credibility toward celebrity significantly

influence their corporate reputation of Honor brand.

H2: Chinese customers’ perceived celebrity credibility of Honor brand are

significant predictors of their intention to purchase.

H3: Chinese customers’ perceived corporate reputation of Honor brand are

significant predictors of their intention to purchase.

25

CHAPTER III

METHODOLOGY

This chapter reveal the relationship among customers perceive the characteristic of

HONOR’s celebrity endorsement advertisement, customers’ intention to purchase

HONOR’s mobile phone which involves research methodology and the sampling

method to described. Based on this, the chapter sections are as follow:

3.1 Research Design

3.2 Population and Sampling Method

3.3 Research Instrument

3.3.1 Interpretation of the Scale

3.4 Research Pretest

3.5 Data Collection Procedure

3.6 Demographic Data of the Samples

3.1 Research Design

This study will extend the research of three scales. The first one examines the

customer perceived of HONOR endorsement, based on Erdogan (1999)celebrity

endorsement advertising theory, this study aims to develop the attractiveness,

expertise, trustworthiness of celebrity endorsement advertisements. The second one is

the Fombrun, et al. (2000b)’s Reputation Quotient (RQ) scale that from emotional

26

appeal, product and service, environment workplace, social and environmental, and

financial performance five dimensions reflect the brand’s reputation. The ultimate

goal is to explore whether the relationship between the two variables affects the

Chinese consumer’s willingness to purchase HONOR mobile phones by quantitative

research.

Data collection is distributed to respondents based on an online questionnaire,

which is the primary tool. The questionnaire was designed to accumulate enough

relevant information to reach the research objectives.

HONOR V20 advertisement with HUGE was selected in this study. Since the

HONOR was lunched on December 26, 2018, it immediately became the sales

champion of the price range of 3,000 yuan or more, and the sales exceeded 1 million

yuan after 2 months.

Figure2: Celebrity Endorsement Advertisement of HU GE

27

Table 3.1: Criteria for degree of agreement dimension

Opinion toward the statement Score Criteria Meaning

Strongly Disagree with the statement 1 1.00 - 1.50 Strongly Disagree

Disagree with the statement 2 1.51 - 2.50 Disagree

Neutral with the statement 3 2.51 - 3.50 Neutral

Agree with the statement 4 3.51 - 4.50 Agree

Strongly agree with the statement 5 4.51 - 5.00 Strongly agree

After the data collection is completed, all the collected data will be put into a

statistical software called SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences).

Respondents' scores are then systematically aggregated to show the total score for

each measuring instrument. Therefore, the average of the data scores can be analyzed

from these data.

3.2 Population and Sampling Method

The purpose of this study was to test the correlation between brand spokespersons

and brand reputation and the extent of the impact on consumer’s purchase intention.

The study population is based on users who have the intention to purchase mobile

phones, and the study population is from almost 20 to 35 years old Chinese.

The reason for choosing these people which on the one hand, because they just

entered the university or society, the price is a important factor on their choice of

mobile phones, they are targeted by the company for the product. On the other hand,

28

young people have a strong interest and awareness of the content provided by the

advertisement, as well as a high degree of advertising recognition, can be combined

with their own actual situation to answer questions, also they have curiosity and

demand for products. the mobile phone would be the second mobile phone purchase,

its purpose is mainly to distinguish between work and life, or to buy for the elders at

home.

Quantitative research methods will be applied to this study. In order to reflect the

relationship between celebrity endorsement advertising reliability, corporate

reputation and customer purchase intention. In order to enable the duration of course

Independent Study, the questionnaire was randomly sent to 200 Chinese consumers

via an Internet by using convenience sampling method to conduct the survey, They

filled out the questionnaire according to their own situation ,and received back 205

samples from internet, which is not including 30 of pre-test sample are used Simple

Random Sampling method to collect the survey.

3.3 Research Instrument

The questionnaire is divided into four main sections, including demographic

information, the other three sections aims to roughly reflect the customer's perception

of the relationship among customers’ perception of the characteristic of celebrity

endorsement advertisement of HONOR, as well as the customer's perception of the

29

HONOR of the brand’s reputation and customers’intention to purchase HONOR

mobile phone.

Section 1: Personal Demographic Data

The first part is the question of Chinese consumers specifying demographic data,

including whether honor products, gender, age, occupation, educational background

and monthly income have been purchased.

Part 2: Customer Perceptions of Celebrity Endorsements in Advertisement

This section of the questionnaire includes the following three dimensions:

The celebrity endorsement was adapted from Ohanian (1990)the scale that

measures consumer expertise, trustworthiness, and expertise appeal for celebrity

endorsements. which has three components, including attractiveness, credibility, and

expertise, with the five-point Likert scale to measure that, the scale ranges from

strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). Attractiveness of advertisement endorsed

by celebrity: (1) Celebrity who endorses advertising of HONOR catches my eyes;( 2)

Celebrity who endorses advertising of HONOR good looking; (3) Celebrity who

endorses advertising of HONOR is interesting.

1. Expertise of advertisement endorsed by celebrity: (1) The celebrity who

endorses advertising of HONOR is top professional. (2) The celebrity who endorses

advertising of HONOR is knowledgeable. (3)The celebrity who endorses advertising

of HONOR is skillful in his/her work area.

30

2. Trustworthiness of advertisement endorsed by celebrity: (1) Celebrity who

endorses advertising of HONOR is reliable. (2)Celebrity who endorses advertising of

HONOR is sincere. (3)Celebrity who endorses advertising of HONOR is unbiased.

Section 3: Reputation Quotient Scale

The third part of the questionnaire includes questions designed to measure

customers’ perceptions with the corporate reputation. Corporate reputation is

measured using a 5-factor and 17-item reputation quotient (RQ) constructed by

Fombrun et al. (2000b) is used to measure corporate entities. The instrument uses a

five-point Liker scale the ranges from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5).

What is your attitude toward the corporate reputation of HONOR?

Emotional appeal 1. Generally speaking, I have a good feeling about

the HONOR.

2. I admire and respect the HONOR.

3 .I trust the HONOR.

Product and services 4. HONOR stands behind its products and services.

5. HONOR develops innovative products and

services.

6. HONOR offers high quality products and

services.

7. HONOR offers products and services that are

good value for money.

Workplace environment 8. HONOR is well managed.

9. HONOR looks like a good company to work for.

31

10. HONOR looks like a company that would have

good employees.

Social and environmental

responsibility

11. HONOR supports constructive social causes.

12. HONOR is an environmentally responsible

company.

13. HONOR maintains a high standard in the way it

treats people.

Financial performance 14. HONOR has a strong record of profitability.

15. HONOR looks like a low-risk investment.

16. HONOR tends to outperform its competitors.

17.HONOR looks like a company with strong

prospects for future growth.

Section 4: Customers’ Intention to Purchase Honor mobile phones.

The last part uses four questions to ask customers about their purchase intentions

after watching the advertisement. The five-point Likert scale is used to check

customer purchases under celebrity endorsements. The scale was from Majeed,and

Razzak,(2011) which established by analyzing whether the effect of endorsement

endorsements will affect consumer purchase expectations. Questions are as follows:

(1) I buy a product based on the attractiveness of the celebrity

(2) I remember a brand just because the celebrities are endorsing it.

(3) I think celebrity endorsement is an important factor when I make my decision.

(4) I would buy a brand if my favorite celebrity is endorsing it.

32

3.4 Research Pretest

Questionnaires for this study were prepared in English and Chinese. Firstly, we cr

eated a questionnaire in English. After checking its wording and validity question, it

was translated into Chinese to make sure the questions in this study are easy to unders

tand and answer. The questionnaire was send to 200 Chinese via social network. Cron

bach’s Alpha coefficient is used to evaluate the reliability of the instrument the

instrument was shown as follow

Table 3.2: The Reliability of instrument

Variable Cronbach’s Alpha N of Items

The overall of Celebrity Credibility .898 9

Attractiveness of Advertisement

Endorsed by celebrity

.785 3

Expertise of source of advertising

endorsed by celebrity

.743 3

Trustworthiness of advertisement

endorsed by celebrity

.799 3

33

Table 3.2(Continued): The Reliability of instrument

The overall of Corporate Reputation .931 17

Emotional appeal .722 3

Product and Service .771 4

Workplace environment .741 3

Social and environment responsibility .713 3

Financial performance .848 4

Intention to purchase Honor mobile

phones

.749 4

The reliability of a project is measured by a coefficient α (Cronbach, 1951).

As shown in Table 3.1, the customer's credibility of the celebrity (α= 0.898),

including the attractiveness of the source (α= 0.785), the credibility of the source

(α= 0.743), the expertise of the source (α= 0.799). Results for all items were above

0.7 and showed excellent reliability.

In addition, in terms of company reputation, the overall reliability of

consumers’ perceived (α= 0.931), including the emotional appeal (α= 0.722), product

and Service (0.771), workplace environment(0.741), social and environment

responsibility (0.713), financial performance (0.848) and the final customer purchase

intention to Honor mobile phones (0.749) the results of all items were higher than 0.7

and showed excellent reliability.

34

3.5 Data Collection Procedure

When I have created the questionnaire in English and translated it into the

Chinese, the data collection procedure is as follows:

The questionnaire has been running on Tencent Questionnaire, this is a

widely used questionnaire website in China, people can put out the questionnaire and

answer the questionnaire, after the establishment of the questionnaire, I spent 250

yuan on Tencent’s questionnaire platform, put in 100 questionnaire samples and

collected 100.

At the same time I shared the link to my friends and family in WeChat group. In

this way I collected 57 questionnaires.

Finally, 55 questionnaires were collected through the QQ group. 200 samples

were obtained by deleting invalid questionnaires.

3.6 Demographic Data of the Samples

Demographic information includes purchasing experience, gender, age,

education background, occupation and monthly income. A brief descriptive analysis

of the frequency and percentage of 200 samples was performed. In the following

tables summarized and presented the frequency and percentage of demographic

profile of the sample.

35

Table 3.3: Purchase experience of the samples

Purchase Experience: Frequency Percentage (%)

Purchase 138 69

Never Purchase 62 31

Total 200 100

Table 3.4: Gender of the samples

Gender Frequency Percentage (%)

Male 112 56

Female 88 44

Total 200 100

Table 3.5: Age of the samples

Age Frequency Percentage (%)

Less than 16 year old 7 3.5

17-21 years old 52 26

22-26years old 70 35

27-31years old 44 22

32-36years old 18 9

Higher than 37 years old 9 4.5

Total 200 100

36

Table 3.6: Education background of the samples

Education background Frequency Percentage (%)

Lower than high school diploma 22 11

High school diploma 59 29.5

Bachelor’s degree 115 57.5

Master’s degree 4 2

Doctoral’s degree 0 0

Total 200 100

Table 3.7: Occupation of the samples

Occupation Frequency Percentage (%)

student 38 19

Government officer 59 29.5

Employees 67 33.5

Freelancer 34 17

Others 2 1

Total 200 100

Table 3.8: Monthly income of the samples

Monthly income Frequency Percentage (%)

Less than 10,000 yuan 40 20

10,001-20,000 yuan 69 34.5

20,001-30,000 yuan 65 32.5

30,001-40,000 yuan 17 8.5

Over40001 yuan 9 4.5

Total 200 100

37

As shown in the table above, the descriptive analysis of demographic data

showed that 69% of the samples had experience purchasing HONOR mobile phones

(N = 138), while 31% of the samples claimed that they never purchased HONOR

mobile phones (N = 62). And more than half (56%) of the samples were male (N =

112), and 44% were 88 female. The table indicated that the majority respondents were

between age range of 17-36 years old (83%, N=166). Among them, 22-26 years old

has the largest number, with 70 people, accounting for 35%, followed by 17-21 years

old (26%, N = 52). In terms of their education background, 98% have degrees below

the master’s degree (N = 196), of which bachelor education accounted for 57.5% (N =

115), followed by high school education (29.5%, N = 59). In terms of their

occupations, 33% of the samples was company employees (N = 67), followed by

government officer (29.5%, N = 59) and students (19%, N = 38). Regarding their

monthly income, 34.5% of the sample (N = 69) had a monthly income of

10,001-20,000 yuan, followed by 20001-30000 yuan (32.5%, N = 65) and less than

10,000 yuan (20%, N = 40 ).

After the data collection is completed, all the collected data will be put into a

statistical software called SPSS (Social Science Statistics Package). Respondents'

scores are then systematically aggregated to show the total score for each measuring

instrument. So data can be analyzed from this data the average of the scores.

38

CHAPTER IV

DATA ANALYSIS

This chapter demonstrates data analyzed results of the quantitative statistic which

was surveyed from 200 Chinese customers by means of online questionnaire. Linear

Regression approach will be used for hypotheses testing. The topics outlines of this

chapter are as follow:

4.1 Data Analysis and Interpretation

4.2 Summary on Findings of Descriptive Analysis

4.3 Hypotheses Findings and Testing

4.1 Data Analysis and Interpretation

SPSS window 22.0 (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) was used for the data

analyzing. There were two independent variables, two dependent variable. The

measurement of this study included Simple Regression.

H1:Chinese customers’perceived credibility toward celebrity significantly

influence their corporate reputation of Honor brand.

The independent variable was the credibility toward celebrity by the customer.

39

The dependent variable was the reputation of HONOR corporate.

H2:Chinese customers’perceived celebrity credibility of Honor brand are

significant predictors of their intention to purchase.

The independent variable was the credibility toward celebrity by the customer.

The dependent variable was the intention to purchase HONOR mobile phone.

H3: Chinese customers’perceived corporate reputation of Honor brand are

significant predictors of their intention to purchase.

The independent variable was the reputation of HONOR corporate. The

dependent variable was the intention to purchase HONOR mobile phone.

The customers’ perceived of the celebrities’ credibility was measured in three

dimensions: attractiveness, expertise and trustworthiness, and was measured by a

five-point interval scale. The customers’ perceived of reputation for HONOR brand is

measured by five variables. Their impact on customers’ purchase intentions will be

measured separately, and simple regression analysis is used to find important

predictors of dependent variables.

The researcher will use the following table to interpret the mean of the

independent and dependent variables.

40

Table 4.1: Data Analysis for perceived the attractiveness, trustworthiness expertise of

advertisement endorsed by celebrity and perceived corporate reputation

toward HONOR.

Opinion toward the statement Score Criteria Meaning

Strongly agree with the statement 5 4.21 – 5.00 Strongly agree

Agree with the statement 4 3.41 – 4.20 Agree

Neutral with the statement 3 2.61 – 3.40 Neutral

Disagree with the statement 2 1.81 – 2.60 Disagree

Strongly Disagree with the statement 1 1.00 – 1.80 Strongly disagree

Table4.2: Analyzing the degree of perceived the attractiveness, trustworthiness

expertise of advertisement endorsed by celebrity and perceived corporate

reputation toward HONOR.

Criteria Source Characteristics Corporate reputation

3.68 – 5.00 High perception Positive reputation

2.34 – 3.67 Medium perception Neutral reputation

1.00 – 2.33 Low perception Negative reputation

41

4.2 Summary on Findings of Descriptive Analysis

SPSS window 22.0 (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) is used for data

analysis. There are two Independent variables, the other two are Dependent variable.

The measure for this study used simple regression.

As shown in Table 4.1, the mean, standard deviation of the descriptive statistical

analysis, and the interpretation of the characteristics of the celebrity endorsement

advertisements perceived by the customers indicated that the characteristics of the

customers’ total mean star endorsement advertisements are 3.86. The highest mean is

the trustworthiness of celebrity endorsement ( X =3.89), and the second is the

attractiveness ( X =3.86) the same as the expertise ( X =3.86). The overall mean is

between 3.51 and 4.50, which indicates that customers have a high perception toward

the celebrity endorsed the HONOR.

42

Table 4.3: Means, standard deviation, and interpretation on the samples’ perceived the

attractiveness, trustworthiness expertise of advertisement endorsed by

Celebrity.

Perception toward the source characteristics of

the celebrity endorsementX SD Interpretation

Attractiveness of Advertisement Endorsed by celebrity

Celebrity who endorses advertising of HONOR

catches my eyes.

3.90 .997 Agree

Celebrity who endorses advertising of HONOR

good looking.

3.77 .944 Agree

Celebrity who endorses advertising of HONOR is

interesting.

3.90 .974 Agree

Total 3.86 .794 High perceived

attractiveness

Expertise of Advertisement Endorsed by celebrity

The celebrity who endorses advertising of HONOR

is top professional.

3.84 .943 Agree

43

Table 4.3(Continued): Means, standard deviation, and interpretation on the samples’

perceived the attractiveness, trustworthiness expertise of

advertisement endorsed by celebrity.

The celebrity who endorses advertising of HONOR

is knowledgeable.

3.78 .968 Agree

The celebrity who endorses advertising of HONOR

is skillful in his/her work area.

3.94 .998 Agree

Total 3.86 .769 High perceived

expertise

Trustworthiness of Advertisement Endorsed by celebrity

Celebrity who endorses advertising of HONOR is

reliable.

3.92 .948 Agree

Celebrity who endorses advertising of HONOR is

sincere.

3.84 .921 Agree

Celebrity who endorses advertising of HONOR is

unbiased.

3.92 .923 Agree

Total 3.89 .734 High perceived

trustworthiness

Total mean of customers perceived characteristics

of celebrity endorsed advertisement.

3.86 .682 High perceived

of source

characteristics

44

As shown in Table 4.2, descriptive findings found that indicated that majority of

the respondent has a positive reputation toward Honor ( X = 3.86). According to the

standard, if the average value is between 3.51 and 4.50, it means that the perceived

corporate reputation of the Honor is positive. There are five dimensions of corporate

reputation perceived by Chinese customers. Their highest mean is emotional appeal

( X =3.89), followed by product and service ( X =3.87), social and environmental

responsibility ( X =3.86), financial performance ( X =3.83) and workplace

environment ( X =3.81), respectively. The lowest mean is financial and workplace

environment.

Table 4.4: Means, standard deviation, and interpretation on the samples’ perceived

corporate reputation toward HONOR.

Customers’ Perceived Corporate Reputation X SD Interpretatio

n

Emotional appeal

Generally speaking, I have a good feeling about

the HONOR.

4.02 .894 Agree

I admire and respect the HONOR. 3.74 .921 Agree

I trust the HONOR. 3.92 .979 Agree

45

Table 4.4(Continued): Means, standard deviation, and interpretation on the samples’

perceived corporate reputation toward HONOR.

Total 3.89 .764 Positive

Reputation

Product and service

4. HONOR stands behind its products and

services.

3.87 .913 Agree

5. HONOR develops innovative products and

services.

3.91 .938 Agree

6. HONOR offers high quality products and

services.

3.85 .890 Agree

7. HONOR offers products and services that are

good value for money.

3.85 .925 Agree

Total 3.87 .673 Positive

Reputation

Workplace environment

HONOR is well managed. 3.88 .907 Agree

46

Table 4.4(Continued): Means, standard deviation, and interpretation on the samples’

perceived corporate reputation toward HONOR.

HONOR looks like a good company to work for. 3.74 .915 Agree

HONOR looks like a company that would have

good employees.

3.82 .953 Agree

Total 3.81 .739 Positive

Reputation

Social and environmental responsibility

HONOR supports constructive social causes. 3.91 .934 Agree

HONOR is an environmentally responsible

company.

3.77 .913 Agree

HONOR maintains a high standard in the way it

treats people.

3.90 .953 Agree

Total 3.86 .726 Positive

Reputation

Financial performance

HONOR has a strong record of profitability. 3.83 .914 Agree

HONOR looks like a low-risk investment. 3.79 .924 Agree

HONOR tends to outperform its competitors. 3.76 .989 Agree

47

Table 4.4(Continued): Means, standard deviation, and interpretation on the samples’

perceived corporate reputation toward HONOR.

HONOR looks like a company with strong

prospects for future growth.

3.93 .927 Agree

Total 3.83 .723 Positive

Reputation

Total mean of customers perceived corporate

reputation.

3.85 .636 Positive

Reputation

As shown in Table 4.3, descriptive statistical analysis of customers’ purchase of

HONOR mobile phones shows that customers’ intentions to buy HONOR mobile

phones are high ( X =3.77, between 3.51 and 4.50). When examining each statement,

the findings also suggested that consumers will purchase ( X =3.89) and

remember( X =3.63) products because of the attractiveness of endorsers. At the same

time, endorsers will also influence the purchase decision when they buy HONOR

mobile phones ( X =3.79). If they like a certain endorser, they will also buy HONOR

mobile phones ( X =3.76).

48

Table 4.5: Customers’ intention to purchase HONOR

Customers’ intention to purchase HONOR X SD Interpretatio

n

I buy a product based on the attractiveness of the

celebrity

3.89 .957 Agree

I remember a brand just because the celebrities are

endorsing it.

3.63 .963 Agree

I think celebrity endorsement is an important

factor when I make my decision.

3.79 .965 Agree

I would buy a brand if my favorite celebrity is

endorsing it.

3.76 .969 Agree

Total 3.77 .740 Positive

intention

4.3 Hypotheses Findings and Testing

Regression analysis is used to test the following three hypotheses:

H1: Chinese customers’ perceived credibility toward celebrity significantly

influence their corporate reputation of Honor brand.

H2: Chinese customers’ perceived celebrity credibility of Honor brand are

significant predictors of their intention to purchase.

H3: Chinese customers’ perceived corporate reputation of Honor brand are

significant predictors of their intention to purchase.

49

H1: Chinese customers’ perceived credibility toward celebrity significantly

influence their corporate reputation of Honor brand.

As shown in the Model Summary in Table 4.6, the customer’ perception of

attractiveness, expertise, trustworthiness in celebrity have strong statistical

significance for the customer’ perception of reputation for the HONOR corporate.

While the correlation coefficient (R) is 0.714, the square is equal to 0.510, which

indicated all source characteristics including attractiveness, expertise, and

trustworthiness of advertising recognition are accountable for 51% of HONOR’ s

reputation, which is considered to be quite high.

In the ANOVA (Analysis of Variance) table indicated all all source characteristics

including attractiveness, expertise, and trustworthiness of advertising recognition are

accountable for 51% of HONOR’ s corporate reputation, which is considered to be

quite high (R2= .510*, p > .05). Thus, the hypothesis is supported.

As shown in the Coefficient Table, when examining the power of each source

characteristics, the findings suggested that attractiveness (Beta = -.059, p> .05) is not

significant predictor but expertise (Beta = .406**, p < .05) and trustworthiness (Beta

= .465*, p < .05) are significant positive predictors. The un-standardized coefficient

Beta of attractiveness, expertise, and trustworthiness by celebrity is equal to -0.047,

0.336, 0.403, and the standardized factor is equal to -0.059, 0.406, 0.465, respectively.

Trustworthiness has the greatest positive effect on a customer's perception of

50

reputation, followed by expertise, but attractiveness has a negative effect on corporate

reputation.

Table 4.6: Multiple Regression Analysis of the characteristics of celebrity endorsed

advertisement and customers’ attitude to corporate reputation

Model Summaryb

Model RRSquare

AdjustedR Square

Std.Error oftheEstimate

Change Statistics

RSquareChange

FChange df1 df2

Sig. FChange

1 .714a .510 .507 .44632 .510 205.830 1 198 .000

a. Predictors: (Constant), Customers’ perceived credibility toward celebrity

b. Dependent Variable: Customers’ perceived of corporate reputation

ANOVAa

ModelSum ofSquares df

MeanSquare F Sig.

1 Regression 41.001 1 41.001 205.830 .000b

Residual 39.441 198 .199

Total 80.442 199

a. Dependent Variable: (Constant), Attractiveness of advertisement endorsedby celebrity, Expertise of source of advertising by celebrity, Trustworthiness ofadvertisement endorsed by celebrity, Celebrity-product congruence ofadvertisement endorsed by celebrity.

b. Predictors: (Constant), customers perceived of corporate reputation

51

Table 4.6(Continued): Multiple Regression Analysis of the characteristics of celebrity

endorsed advertisement and customers’ attitude to corporate

reputation.

Coefficientsa

Model

UnstandardizedCoefficients

StandardizedCoefficients

t Sig.

95.0%ConfidenceInterval for B

BStd.Error Beta

LowerBound

UpperBound

1 (Constant) 1.169 .175 6.668 .000 .823 1.515

Attractiveness -.047 .060 -.059 -.791 .430 -.166 .071

Expertise .336 .060 .406 5.639 .000 .218 .453

Trustworthiness

.403 .060 .465 6.777 .000 .286 .521

a. Dependent Variable: customers perceived of corporate reputation

H2: Chinese customers’ perceived celebrity credibility of Honor brand are

significant predictors of their intention to purchase.

As shown in the Model Summary in Table 4.7, the customer’ perception of

attractiveness, expertise, trustworthiness in celebrity have strong statistical

significance for the customer’ purchase intention for the HONOR mobile phone.

While the correlation coefficient (R) is 0.588, the square is equal to 0.346, which

52

indicated all source characteristics including attractiveness, expertise, and

trustworthiness of advertising recognition are accountable for 34.6% of the customer’

purchase intention for the HONOR mobile phone which is considered to be quite

high.

In the ANOVA (Analysis of Variance) table indicated all all source characteristics

including attractiveness, expertise, and trustworthiness of advertising recognition are

accountable for 34.6% of the customer’ purchase intention , which is considered to be

quite high (R2= .346*, p > .05). Thus, the hypothesis is supported.

As shown in the Coefficient Table, when examining the power of each source

characteristics, the findings suggested that expertise (Beta = .156, p > .05) is not

significant predictor but trustworthiness (Beta = .322**, p < .05) and attractiveness

(Beta = .186*, p < .05) are significant positive predictors. The un-standardized

coefficient Beta of attractiveness, expertise, and trustworthiness by celebrity is equal

to -0.173, 0.151, 0.325, and the standardized factor is equal to 0.186, 0.156, 0.322,

respectively. Trustworthiness has the greatest positive effect on a customer’ purchase

intention for the HONOR mobile phone, followed by attractiveness, but expertise

has a negative effect on corporate reputation.

53

Table 4.7: Simple Regression Analysis of customers’ attitude to celebrity and

customers’ Intention.

Model Summaryb

Model R

RSquare

Adjusted RSquare

Std.Error oftheEstimate

Change Statistics

RSquareChange

FChange df1 df2

Sig. FChange

1 .588a .346 .343 .60062 .346 104.717 1 198 .000

a. Predictors: (Constant), Attractiveness of advertisement endorsed bycelebrity, Expertise of source of advertising by celebrity, Trustworthiness ofadvertisement endorsed by celebrity, Celebrity-product congruence ofadvertisement endorsed by celebrity.

b. Dependent Variable: Customers’ intention to purchase HONOR mobilephone.

ANOVAa

ModelSum ofSquares df Mean Square F Sig.

1 Regression 37.777 1 37.777 104.717 .000b

Residual 71.428 198 .361

Total 109.205 199

a. Dependent Variable: Customers’ intention to purchase HONOR mobilephone.

b. Predictors: (Constant), Attractiveness of advertisement endorsed bycelebrity, Expertise of source of advertising by celebrity, Trustworthiness ofadvertisement endorsed by celebrity, Celebrity-product congruence ofadvertisement endorsed by celebrity.

54

Table 4.7(Continued): Simple Regression Analysis of customers’ attitude to celebrity

and customers’ Intention.

Coefficientsa

Model

UnstandardizedCoefficients

StandardizedCoefficients

t Sig.

95.0%ConfidenceInterval for B

BStd.Error Beta

LowerBound

UpperBound

1 (Constant) 1.252 .248 5.052 .000 .763 1.741

Attractiveness .173 .085 .186 2.042 .042 .006 .340

Expertise .151 .084 .156 1.788 .075 -.015 .317

Trustworthiness .325 .084 .322 3.865 .000 .159 .491

a. Dependent Variable: Customers’ intention to purchase HONOR mobilephone.

H3: Chinese customers’ perceived corporate reputation of Honor brand are

significant predictors of their intention to purchase.

As shown in the Model Summary in Table 4.8, the customer’ perception of

emotional appeal, product and service.workplace environment, social and

environmental responsibility, financial performance in corporate reputation have

strong statistical significance for the customer’ purchase intention for the HONOR

mobile phone. While the correlation coefficient (R) is 0.628, the square is equal to

0.395, which indicated all source characteristics including emotional appeal, product

55

and service, workplace environment, social and environmental responsibility,

financial performance of reputation recognition are accountable for 39.5% of the

customer’ purchase intention for the HONOR mobile phone which is considered to be

quite high.

In the ANOVA (Analysis of Variance) table indicated all all source characteristics

including emotional appeal, product and service, workplace environment, social and

environmental responsibility, financial performance of reputation recognition are

accountable for 39.5% of the customer’ purchase intention , which is considered to be

quite high (R2= .395*, p > .05). Thus, the hypothesis is supported.

As shown in the Coefficient Table, when examining the power of each source

characteristics, the findings suggested that emotional appeal (Beta = .114, p > .05) ,

product and service(Beta = .157, p > .05), and workplace environment (Beta = .004,

p > .05) are not significant predictor but social and environmental responsibility

(Beta = .413**, p < .05) and financial performance (Beta = .346*, p < .05) are

significant positive predictors. The un-standardized coefficient Beta of the customer’

perception of emotional appeal, product and service.workplace environment, social

and environmental responsibility, financial performance corporate reputation is equal

to -0.111, -0.173, 0.04, 0.422, 0 355 and the standardized factor is equal to 0.081,

0.103, 0.095, 0.089, 0.100, respectively. social and environmental responsibility has

the greatest positive effect on a customer's purchase intention of HONOR mobile

56

phone, followed by financial performance, but emotional appeal, product and

service, workplace environment has a negative effect on corporate reputation.

Table 4.8: Simple Regression Analysis of customers’ attitude to corporate reputation

and customers’ Intention

Model Summaryb

Model R

RSquare

AdjustedRSquare

Std.Error oftheEstimate

Change Statistics

RSquareChange

FChange df1 df2

Sig. FChange

1 .628a .395 .392 .57767 .395 129.251 1 198 .000

a. Predictors: (Constant), Emotional appeal of corporate, product and serviceof corporate, workplace environment of corporate, social and environmentalresponsibility of corporate, financial performance of corporate.

b. Dependent Variable: Customers’ intention to purchase HONOR mobilephone.

ANOVAa

ModelSum ofSquares df

MeanSquare F Sig.

1 Regression 43.132 1 43.132 129.251 .000b

Residual 66.073 198 .334

Total 109.205 199

a. Dependent Variable: Customers’ intention to purchase HONOR mobilephone.

57

b. Predictors: (Constant), Emotional appeal of corporate, product and serviceof corporate, workplace environment of corporate, social and environmentalresponsibility of corporate, financial performance of corporate.

Table 4.8(Continued):Simple Regression Analysis of customers’ attitude to corporate

reputation and customers’ Intention

Coefficientsa

Model

Unstandardized Coefficients

StandardizedCoefficients

t Sig.

95.0%ConfidenceInterval for B

BStd.Error Beta

LowerBound

UpperBound

1 (Constant) 1.002 .244 4.109 .000 .521 1.483

Emotionalappeal .111 .081 .114 1.366 .173 -.049 .270

Product andservice -.173 .103 -.157 -1.67

1 .096 -.377 .031

Workplaceenvironment .004 .095 .004 .042 .967 -.184 .192

Social andenvironmentalresponsibility

.422 .089 .413 4.755 .000 .247 .597

Financialperformance .355 .100 .346 3.533 .001 .157 .553

a. Dependent Variable: Customers’ intention to purchase HONOR mobilephone.

58

CHAPTER V

DISCUSSION

This chapter summarizes the main findings and results analysis. Suppose 200 valid

questionnaires and data have been tested analysis to summarize and discuss

quantitative findings will be chapter. The discussion and summary are summarized

below:

5.1Summary of the Descriptive Findings and Discussion

5.1.1 Hypotheses Summary and Discussion

5.2 Conclusion of the Research

5.3 Limitations of the Study

5.4 Recommendation for Future Application

5.5 Recommendation for Future Research

5.1Summary of the Descriptive Findings and Discussion

Based on the questionnaire analysis of 200 Chinese customers, this study further

analyzes and explores the results of empirical research, and expounds the impact of

the three dimensions of the adman’s letter on the corporate reputation and the

consumer's purchase intention, as well as the influence of the five dimensions of the

59

corporate reputation on the purchase intention. And the author analyzes the

enlightenment of the research results to the management practice.

It was first found that 69% of respondents had purchased HONOR phones, 58%

cent of whom were men, so in this case gender did not explicitly point to the purchase

of the brand's phones. The majority of respondents were aged 22 to 26, with 33.5% of

employees and 57.5% having a bachelor's degree. And HONOR brand positioning

crowd basically coincide , therefore in the brand image of the appeal of the

spokesman’ s attractiveness, expertise, trustworthiness of the three dimensions of the

corporate reputation found that the credibility of the spokesman for the corporate

reputation has a positive impact, while the reputation of the corporate will also affect

the consumer's intention to buy.

The study’s conclusions are based on the theory of meaning transfer because

there is a certain degree of information asymmetry between consumers and corporate,

therefore, the consumer may have unknown concerns when the buying decisions.

They cannot determine what results may occur before they buy. Spokespersons

become a bridge between products and consumers. According to the characteristics of

the meaning migration model, this means that corporate should fully evaluate the

credibility of the spokesperson in the process of building brand trust by using brand

image spokesperson strategy. The intention to buy is positive, they have a higher

degree of recognition of HONOR’s spokesperson, want to buy HONOR’s mobile

60

phone. They feel that celebrity's sense shifts in recognition advertising, especially the

credibility of the spokespersons, which means that their trust in celebrities can affect

their trust in the HONOR brand and a highly positive attitude towards HONOR.

However, research shows that spokespersons are not an important

decision-making factor for consumers' purchasing intentions, and the reputation of

brands themselves will also be a factor for consumers to consider. Based on their

views on The Spokesperson of Huge, and the reputation of the endorsement company,

and the degree of willingness to buy HONOR phones. Analysis, consumers think that

the credibility of the spokesperson will affect the brand reputation of HONOR mobile

phone and consumer sought-after intentions, mainly the professionalism of the

spokesperson and credibility will affect the consumer's view of the brand reputation,

which is in line with the first.

Corporate reputation has a positive impact on consumer seeking to buy. And the

impact of corporate reputation on consumer purchase intention is higher than the

degree of corporate social responsibility on consumer purchase intention. This paper

obtains the determination coefficient of the return of corporate reputation and

consumer purchase intention by empirical research of 0.628. Thus, the model of this

paper is assumed to be evidenced.

61

5.1.1 Hypotheses Summary and Discussion

All three hypotheses of this research were supported, demographic of respondents

various in gender, age, occupation, income and education will affect their perceived

different meaning of advertisement endorsed by celebrity so that affect attitude

toward HONOR and intention to purchase its mobile phone, meanwhile their

perceived different meaning of corporate reputation so that affect intention to

purchase its mobile phone.

H1:Chinese customers’ perceived credibility toward celebrity significantly

influence their corporate reputation of Honor brand.

Multi-regression analysis for testing celebrity’s credibility (attractiveness,

expertise, trustworthiness) and perception of the corporate’ s reputation.In this

hypothesis, In the ANOVA (Analysis of Variance) table indicated all all source

characteristics including attractiveness, expertise, and trustworthiness of advertising

recognition are accountable for 51% of HONOR’ s corporate reputation, which is

considered to be quite high (R2= .510*, p > .05). Thus, the hypothesis is supported.

Explain that the spokesperson’s expertise, the trustworthiness has a positive impact on

consumer perceptions of the brand’s reputation. Regarding the attractiveness of brand

brand spokesperson has not had a significant impact on the brand reputation of this

conclusion, this study believes that the possible explanation is that consumers for

62

mobile phone brand this low alternative product is less concerned with the emotional

aspects of the spokesman, more attention is the professionalism of the spokesperson

and his credibility on the reputation of the impact, on this basis may be the brand

sentiment and brand symbol value formed a certain degree of cognition and judgment,

the existence of this previous cognition affects the consumer's evaluation of brand

reputation.

H2:Chinese customers’perceived celebrity credibility of Honor brand are

significant predictors of their intention to purchase.

In the ANOVA (Analysis of Variance) table indicated all all source characteristics

including attractiveness, expertise, and trustworthiness of advertising recognition are

accountable for 34.6% of the customer’ purchase intention , which is considered to be

quite high (R2= .346*, p > .05). Thus, the hypothesis is supported.

Explain that the spokesperson’s attractiveness, trustworthiness has have a positive

impact on consumer spree interest in the brand. For this, the professionalism on the

purchase intention is not significant, may be due to the study selected the spokesman

is a actor Hu Ge, he is a dedicated actor, and in the mobile phone industry is not an

expert, many people will not treat his advertising as a professional advertising, so his

expertise impact on the intention to buy is not obvious.

H3: Chinese customers’ perceived corporate reputation of Honor brand are

63

significant predictors of their intention to purchase.

In the ANOVA (Analysis of Variance) table indicated all all source characteristics

including emotional appeal, product and service, workplace environment, social and

environmental responsibility, financial performance of reputation recognition are

accountable for 39.5% of the customer’ purchase intention , which is considered to be

quite high (R2= .395*, p > .05). Thus, the hypothesis is supported.

Explain that for consumers to buy intention, only the social and environmental

responsibility and finance of corporate are the factors that affect consumer’s intention.

Other effects are not obvious, perhaps because consumers are mostly young people,

who are more focused on the impact of social responsibility on brands, while social

responsibility and finance are the most directly noticeable brand reputations of

consumers, and the other three are not important to young consumers.

5.2 Conclusion of the Research

This study analyzes the credibility of HONOR brand spokesperson and the

emotional tendency of HONOR corporate reputation through empirical research,

mainly the influence of spokespersons on the reputation of mobile phone corporate

and the relationship between the two dimensions of customer purchase intention.

The main conclusions are: First, the credibility factor of the spokesperson has a

significant positive correlation between the reputation of the corporate. Second, there

64

is a significant positive correlation between the credibility factor of the spokesperson

and the intention to purchase the product. Third, the reputation of the corporate for the

intention to purchase products there is a significant positive correlation.

Through this study, we can see that the spokesperson has a positive impact on the

reputation of the corporate, which is in line with the previous research results, the

credibility of the spokesperson has an impact on the consumer's intention to buy. But

unlike previous studies, the impact of attractiveness on consumer spending intentions

in this study is not obvious, perhaps because of the mobile phone industry. Consumers

are more concerned about the information about the products, than the spokesperson

himself.

At the same time, corporate reputation is an effective reflection of corporate

identity, for the various stakeholder groups of corporate, corporate reputation is an

important external embodiment of corporate identity communication. The above

analysis shows that the customer has a significant positive influence on the impact of

the spokesperson on the corporate reputation, and the corporate reputation can also

affect the customer's purchase intention by affecting the customer's sense of identity

to the corporate, which is not mentioned in the previous research, can be

supplemented by future research.

65

5.3 Limitations of the Study

Firstly, It can be seen from the Chapter 3, the age of the respondents in this study

is mainly between 17 and 36 years.This is just one part of the HONOR mobile phone

consumer. It’s hard to say if other age groups have similar consumption habits, It is

necessary to further verify whether the results are applicable to all age groups.

Secondly, the questionnaires for this study are mainly sent online and shared with

friends to fill out. For some questionnaires sent by the Internet, since most of the

respondents are strangers. Therefore, it is impossible to explain the relevant

information of the questionnaire survey for the respondents and timely answer the

questions found in the process of filling in the questionnaire. Thus, the credibility of

the respondents' answers was also affected.

Thirdly, the research object of this study is limited to Chinese consumers. The

feedback sample of the questionnaire was mostly concentrated in the coastal areas of

Guangdong and Zhejiang, and the sample of the inland northwest was less. Because

depending on the distribution of economy of China, economic development in coastal

areas is stronger than in inland areas. Therefore, I think consumers in inland regions

may have different results of this study, and they may not be sensitive to the

marketing model of spokesmen. Therefore, the study also has geographical

limitations.

66

Fourthly, this research is based on the mobile phone industry. Mobile phones do

have high representation and universality, but different products have different

product attributes and characteristics. Therefore, for other products, the customer's

perception of the celebrity, and the relationship between the emotional orientation and

cognitive evaluation dimensions of the corporate reputation and purchase intention

may be different from that of the mobile phone. Therefore, the applicability of the

research conclusions of this paper to other industries and products needs further

confirmation.

There are only a point that in the selection of measurement models. In order to

simplify the model, in terms of the choice of brand image spokespersons and brand

relationships, this study uses the three-dimensional model of brand image

spokespersons proposed in Erdogan (1999) as a measurement model of brand image

spokespersons based on literature review. Different measurement models can be used,

hoping to provide more different perspectives for both the theoretical community and

managers.

5.4 Recommendation for Future Application

First of all, when a company want to select a spokesman, should reasonably

evaluate the credibility of the spokesperson, so that it can find a spokesman that is

more relevant to the brand’s image and maximize the effectiveness of the

spokesperson. From the analysis results of this study, it can be seen that the

67

credibility of celebrity has a significant positive impact on brand reputation. and the

influence on brand reputation, and the brand reputation is the factor affecting

consumers’ purchase intention.

Therefore, corporate should make a full and detailed assessment of the credibility

of brand image spokespersons, and choose a more reliable spokesperson. In order to

prevent negative news from the spokesperson from negative impact on the corporate,

corporate not only set a positive character of spokesperson to improve its credibility.

It is necessary for an corporate to sign the relevant terms in the endorsement contract,

and the contract shall be terminated immediately when the spokesman appears to be

unfavourable to the corporate. Speakers aren't perfect, but as the focus of the spotlight,

when they encounter misconduct, the negative impact quickly amplifies.

Secondly, because customers out of self-expression and self-reinforcing needs,

and through the spokesperson can be the consumer's impression of the brand concrete,

and produce a good reputation of the corporate identity. Therefore, in addition to

actively improving the quality of core products and services, improve the market and

financial performance of corporate, corporate managers should also actively use

spokespersons to carry out a variety of effective marketing activities, strategic

alliances with well-known corporate, flexible use of media publicity and other

activities conducive to the establishment of corporate reputation, to actively manage

and supervise the customer's perception of the reputation of the corporate.

68

Third, companies should use spokespersons to build strong brand relationships

with consumers. This study suggested that spokespersons have a strong influence on

corporate reputation and can drive the relationship between consumers and brands.

The celebrity because of the personality, the interaction between the spokesperson and

the consumer makes it easier for the consumer to understand the product and makes

the consumer more willing to buy. In addition, the rational use of the spokesman can

not only to a certain extent to improve the consumer's purchase intention, but also can

be the spokesperson's unique symbolic value and brand link, while establishing the

emotional relationship between the brand, improve the brand reputation. Finally, this

paper believes that consumers' perception of corporate reputation will promote

consumer awareness of brand mobile phones, so that consumers have an impact on

the brand's mobile phone purchase intention. Marketing managers should actively

measure the importance of spokespersons and corporate honors in consumer behavior.

Finally, this paper holds that the consumer's perception of the corporate

reputation will directly affect the consumer's purchase intention, and indirectly affect

the purchase intention through the customer's corporate recognition. Therefore,

corporate can educate consumers, promote consumers to better perceive the reputation

of corporate, so that consumers will pay more attention to the reputation of corporate,

and corporate to carry out reputation management activities to respond positively, so

that corporate in the market to establish a unique competitive advantage.

69

5.5 Recommendation for Future Research

(1) The factors affecting consumers' purchase intention, in addition to the

credibility of the spokesperson and corporate reputation, matching degree, feasibility,

negative news and other factors, with the introduction of fine processing possibilities

model, these factors on the effect of advertising are the future direction that can be

studied.

(2) Now more and more high-end mobile phones to adopt the practice of no

spokesmen, this approach and a number of previous years a large number of

endorsement wave of what difference, will be the future scholars can study the

direction.

(3)The existing measurement of the reputation of corporate is to the corporate

various stakeholder groups as the evaluation object of corporate reputation. This study

only selects the interest-related group of customers, and on the basis of previous

research, determines the direct impact of the customer's perception of the corporate

reputation on the purchase intention and positive word-of-mouth communication. This

study tries to study the corporate reputation as the ex-factor variable of customer

corporate identification, learn from the mature scale of corporate reputation and the

profound theoretical basis, which has played a complementary role in the research of

the drivers of customer corporate identification, and also has a certain contribution to

the research of organizational identity and customer corporate identification.

70

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APPENDIX A

Questionnaire in English

QUESTIONNAIRE

This questionnaire investigates the relationship between consumers’ perception of

HONOR Company’s reputation and celebrity endorsement in advertising of HONOR

Brand, their attitude toward the celebrity endorsement of HONOR, and their purchase

intention. Please choose the answer that can best represent your opinion. Your

responses will remain anonymous. Thank you in advance for your time and effort.

Your answers will be treated confidentially for the researcher will be using the results

of the surveys for educational purpose only.

Demographic Information

Direction: This part of questionnaire would like to ask about your personal

information. Please put the cross mark (√) next the appropriate answer that can

best represent your demographic profile.

1. Have you ever bought HONOR smart phone?

1)YES 2)NO

2. Gender of respondent

1)Male 2)Female

3.Age of respondent

80

1)Less than 16 year old

2)17-21 years old

3)22-26 years old

4)27 – 31 years old

5)32-36 years old

6) Higher than 37 years old

4.Level of Education

1)Lower than high school diploma

2)High school diploma

3)Bachelor’s degree

4)Master’s degree

5)Doctoral’s degree

5. What is your current occupation?

1)Student

2) Government officer

3)Employees

4)Freelancer

5)Others

81

6. Monthly disposable income

1)Less than 10,000 Baht

2)10,001-20,000 Baht

3)20,001-30,000 Baht

4)30,001-40,000 Baht

5) Higher than 40,000 Baht

Section II: Customers’ perception of celebrity endorsement in advertising This

part of questionnaire would like to ask you about your perception of celebrity

endorsement in advertising. By measuring sources’ attractiveness, sources’

trustworthiness, sources’ expertise and celebrity-Reputation congruence.

Direction: Please put the cross mark (√ ) in the box that best represents your degree of

agreement/disagreement on the following statements.

5. Strongly agree with the statement

4. Agree with the statement

3. Neutral – Not supporting any options of agree and disagree

2. Disagree with the statement

1. Strongly disagree with the statement

82

5 4 3 2 1

Attractiveness of advertisement endorsed bycelebrity

1. Celebrity who endorses advertising ofHONOR catches my eyes.

2. Celebrity who endorses advertising ofHONOR good looking.

3.Celebrity who endorses advertising ofHONOR is interesting.

Expertise of advertisement endorsed bycelebrity

4.The celebrity who endorses advertising ofHONOR is top professional.

5. The celebrity who endorses advertising ofHONOR is knowledgeable.

6. The celebrity who endorses advertising ofHONOR is skillful in his/her work area.

Trustworthiness of advertisement endorsed bycelebrity

7. Celebrity who endorses advertising ofHONOR is reliable.

8.Celebrity who endorses advertising ofHONOR is sincere.

9. Celebrity who endorses advertising ofHONOR is unbiased.

Section III: Customers’ attitude towards HONOR Brand . This part of

questionnaire would like to ask you about your attitude towards the company.

Direction: Please put the cross mark (√) in the box that best represents your

degree of agreement/disagreement on the following statements.

5. Strongly agree with the statement

83

4. Agree with the statement

3. Neutral – Not supporting any options of agree and disagree

2. Disagree with the statement

What is your attitude toward the corporate reputationof HONOR?

5 4 3 2 1

Emotional appeal

1. Generally speaking, I have a good feeling aboutthe HONOR.

2. I admire and respect the HONOR.

3. I trust the HONOR.

Product and service

4. HONOR stands behind its products and services.

5. HONOR develops innovative products andservices.

6. HONOR offers high quality products and services.

7. HONOR offers products and services that aregood value for money.

Workplace environment

8. HONOR is well managed.

9. HONOR looks like a good company to work for.

10. HONOR looks like a company that would havegood employees.

Social and environmental responsibility

11. HONOR supports constructive social causes.

12. HONOR is an environmentally responsiblecompany.

84

13. HONOR maintains a high standard in the way ittreats people.

Financial performance

14. HONOR has a strong record of profitability.

15. HONOR looks like a low-risk investment.

16. HONOR tends to outperform its competitors.

17. HONOR looks like a company with strongprospects for future growth.

1. Strongly disagree with the statement

Section IV: Customer's’ intention to purchase to HONOR This part of questionnaire

would like to examine your intention to purchase to HONOR in the near future (6

months or more). Direction: Please put the cross mark (√) in the box that best

represents your degree of agreement/disagreement on the following statements.

5. Strongly agree with the statement

4. Agree with the statement

3. Neutral – Not supporting any options of agree and disagree

2. Disagree with the statement

1. Strongly disagree with the statement

5 4 3 2 1

1. I buy a product based on the attractiveness of thecelebrity

2. I remember a brand just because the celebrities areendorsing it.

85

3. I think celebrity endorsement is an important factorwhen I make my decision.

4.I would buy a brand if my favorite celebrity isendorsing it.

86

APPENDIXA

Questionnaire in Chinese

本问卷调查了消费者对荣耀公司声誉的看法与荣耀品牌广告中名人代言的关系、

对荣耀品牌名人代言的态度及其购买意向。请选择最能代表您意见的答案。您的

回复将保持匿名。提前感谢您的时间和精力。您的答案将保密,因为研究人员将

仅将调查结果用于教育目的。

*你的答案都将被视为机密,并且只作为一个整体用于本研究

人口信息统计:问卷的这一部分想询问您的个人信息。请选择最能代表您的人口

统计资料的答案。

1.您是否购买过荣耀手机

1) 是

2) 否

2.您的性别是

1) 男

2) 女

3.您的年龄是:

1) 小于等于 16岁

2) 17-21岁

87

3) 3.22-26岁

4) 4.27-31岁

5) 5.31-36岁

6) 6.大于等于 36岁

4.您的教育程度是?

1) 高中以下

2) 高中

3) 本科

4) 研究生

5) 博士

5.您目前的职业是

1) 学生

2) 公务员/事业单位

3) 企业雇员

4) 自由职业

5) 其它

6.您的月收入是多少人民币

88

1) 少于 2000

2) 2001-4000

3) 4001-6000

4) 6001-8000

5) 8001以上

Section II: 客户对广告中名人代言的看法 问卷的这一部分询问您对广告中的

明星代言的看法。通过衡量信息来源的吸引力,信息来源的可信度,信息来源

的专业知识和名人声誉一致性。

1=强烈同意的声明

2=同意的声明

3=中立-不支持任何同意和不同意的选项

4=同意的声明

5=声明强烈反对

5 4 3 2 1

荣耀手机代言人胡歌的吸引力程度

我认为代言人是胡歌很吸引我

我认为代言人胡歌外貌很好看

我认为代言人胡歌很有趣

荣耀手机代言人胡歌的专业度

我认为代言人胡歌是顶级专业人士

我认为代言人胡歌是知识渊博的

89

我认为代言人胡歌在其工作领域很出色

荣耀手机代言人胡歌的可信度

我认为代言人胡歌是一个可靠的人

我认为代言人胡歌是一个真诚的人

我认为代言人胡歌是一个公正的人

请在表格空白处标记 ()

Section III: 客户对荣耀品牌的态度 问卷的这一部分想问一下您对荣耀公司的

态度。方向:请在最能代表您对以下陈述的同意/不同意程度的方框中打叉(√)

1=强烈同意的声明

2=同意的声明

3=中立-不支持任何同意和不同意的选项

4=同意的声明

5=声明强烈反对

您对荣耀品牌的看法?

5 4 3 2 1

感性诉求

总的来说,荣耀品牌给我很好的印象

我认为荣耀是一个值得尊重和钦佩的品牌

我相信荣耀这个品牌

产品和服务

我认为荣耀品牌能为其产品做背书

我认为荣耀品牌在不断创新

90

我认为荣耀提供高品质的产品和服务

荣誉品牌提供了物有所值的产品和服务

工作环境

荣耀是一个善于管理的品牌

荣耀看起来是一个值得员工奋斗的品牌

荣耀看起来是一个拥有优秀员工的公司

社会和环境的责任

荣耀品牌支持有建设性的社会活动

荣耀是一家对社会环境负责的公司

荣耀在人权方面保持着高标准

财务表现

荣耀品牌有良好的利润

看起来像一个低风险的投资

往往优于竞争对手

看起是一个未来前景增长强劲的公司

Section IV: 客户对荣耀手机购买的意向 问卷的这一部分询问您打算在不久的

将来(6个月或更长时间)购买荣耀手机。方向:请在最能代表您对以下陈述的

同意/不同意程度的方框中打叉(√)。

1=强烈同意的声明

2=同意的声明

3=中立-不支持任何同意和不同意的选项

4=同意的声明

91

5=声明强烈反对

5 4 3 2 1

我会因为代言人具有吸引力而购买产品

我记得这个品牌仅仅是因为它的代言人

我认为品牌代言人是我购买决策的重要因素之一

我会购买某品牌产品如果是我最喜欢的名人做品

牌代言

Bangkok UniversityLicense Agreement of Dissertation/Thesis/ Report of Senior Project

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dissertation/thesis/report of senior project entitled

The Impact of Celebrity Credibility, and Corporate reputation on their Intention toPurchase smart phone “HONOR” Brand among Chinese Customers.

submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for M.COM.ARTS

of Bangkok University (hereafter referred to as "dissertation/thesis/ report of senior

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